Mountain information
Aipine environment
In our guiding, we hike alpine mountains like Northern Japan alps.
The people are attracted with its high altitude environment, geo formation, history, alpinism culture, wilderness, alpine flora etc. The peaks of those mountain range is about 3,000m elevation from the sea level. The alpine environment in main island of Japan is from about 2,000m-2,500m. Because of the alpine environment, remained snow from winter stays until July and August usually. The hiking in the alps is short window. (Mid July to early Oct.)
In summer, you start hike with T-shirt from the forest and get a lot of sweat because of its humidity. As you gain the elevation, it becomes dryer and cooler. Even if it is summer, you need warm layers in the morning and night at alpine area. In its exposed alpine environment, there is nothing protects you from rain and wind but a mountain hut. It is possible and easy to get hypothermia with rain and wind. Please keep it mind that you definitely need proper mountain gears to survive.
Please check more details on Hiking plan page.
Trail condition
It depends on which mountain you go. from my experience of hiking in Nepal and New Zealand, the trail in Japan is not that easy especially when you walk to high peaks. The steepness of the trail is mean in a way. The most of trails are maintained by local volunteers, company, government and mountain huts.
The typical example of trail below tree line, it can be hard soil, soft mad, a lot of tree roots, or bushes. Above the tree line, it is rocky, uneven, scree and fragile at some places.
The good news is that in the season, for everyone to get through, wooden bridges are built for crossing stream, ladders or chains are on difficult rocks to climb in general. The condition will be change by the weather conditions.
Hiking difficulty/experience
Our guiding plans are separated into day and multi-day.
The most of day hike takes roughly 4-6 hours on average walking pace. In multi-day, we walk for 6-10 hours in a day.
Check the distance, time and elevation gain and loss given at each guiding page.
Hiking is open to anyone, and guide job is to help and support your hiking. But if your level is way too far against what you want, it is just a mismatch. Although we are happy and honored to support your "challenge," the mismatch is not fun. To avoid that mismatch, we set the levels. At each plan, we put the recommended level. This is not perfect idea and we will ask your level of fitness and experience before you make a booking, so please let us know.
Level 1 - Beginner
- never hiked before, but excise regularly
- hiking experience is day hike only
- durable to move for 4-6 hours
Level 2 - Intermediate
- have been hiking more than a few years and have experience of overnight hiking
- know what to bring and can organize what you do on the mountain
- durable to hike 6-10 hors each day
Level 3 - Advanced
- have been hiking for long time including multiday hiking
- enjoy mountain activity all year around (rock climbing, skiing or snowboarding, snowshoeing etc.)
- durable to hike 8- 12 hours each day
Mountain huts
There is a lot of rules at Japanese mountain huts！
Facilities / Room / Food / Rules
Basically, they have electricity, toilet, variety of snacks and drinks... Water is filtered rain water or stream water, electricity comes from solar or generator. The toilet is dropped style most likely . There may be a drying room. Also, phone service and Wi-Fi might be available. It really depends where it is located and how they operate with the environment.
The room is usually shared with other hikers. It is good to have ear-plug for your sleeping. After the pandemic, it looks each mountain hut made separation in shared room and we can have more space for each.
The hut has bedding, mostly futon. Bring your sleeping liner if you need.
Some huts have a private room with extra charge. If a hut has one and you want a request for a private room, let us know when you make a reservation.
The food at mountain hut is pre-cooked meal in the most of cases, but it is hot meal! It is hard to request the food for your dietary constraints. If you have dietary restrictions for any reasons, bring your own foods with you. Hot water is available at a hut. Beer, coke and cup noodle is very common food that you can purchase at a hut.
The morning at mountain hut is very early. In summer season, we have breakfast like 5-7a.m. then we leave. In Japan, we have a saying "YAMAGOYA SANJI" Directly translated "Mountain hut, 3 p.m." It means that the hikers should arrive at a mountain hut by 3 p.m. The typical weather on high alpine is that the clouds are lifted up by the heat and it creates rain clouds with thunder. It rains after three. To avoid this situation, everything is early. The dinner is 5-6 p.m. Then the light off is by 8. The weather condition is hard to be expected these days, but they keep the same way. Again, it depends on the mountain hut.